© The Indian Express (P) Ltd
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Journalism of Courage
As it appeared likely on Sunday afternoon that some Congress MLAs in Goa could switch sides and its legislature party could split, the Trinamool Congress decided to rush its senior leader Derek O’Brien to Panaji. No, the TMC doesn’t have any MLAs in Goa and has no stakes in the defection saga.
The TMC, which had contested the Goa Assembly elections earlier this year in a big way and managed to get around 8% of the vote share, wanted to seize the opportunity to reiterate its campaign message that the Congress and BJP are the same and the two parties are playing a game of musical chairs.
But the Congress high command waited and watched, as the sordid political drama unfolded in Goa. It was only midnight that it decided to send senior leader Mukul Wasnik to Panaji on a firefighting mission.
It is not that the Congress leadership was caught unawares. “We knew the BJP was planning to make all our 11 MLAs defect. We had heard the rumours about Digambar Kamat meeting Amit Shah in Delhi,” a senior Congress leader said, while pointing out that they had managed to avoid a split. “We worked hard to avert a two-third defection. The BJP could not get eight MLAs (to achieve that). Five of our MLAs stood strongly with us,” the leader added.
Another leader pointed out that AICC in-charge Dinesh Gundu Rao was in Goa holding meetings with MLAs.
However, that matters came to such a pass is for many leaders another proof of the high command’s failures.
“The decision to appoint 38-year-old Amit Patkar, who is a close associate of his predecessor Girish Chodankar, as the PCC president and Michael Lobo, who joined the Congress just before the elections, as Leader of the Opposition obviously upset Kamat. How could you appoint a person who has just joined the party to such a post? He should not have been inducted into the Congress in the first place. What message did we give to the rank and file?” a leader said.
The counter-argument is that making Lobo the Leader of the Opposition was an insurance that he would stay in the party – an argument that had no feet on Sunday as Lobo’s name led those in the rebel group.
A section of the party also wondered how the high command could persist with Rao as the in-charge. “He is a lightweight. The party should have deputed someone senior who could deal with the likes of Kamat,” one leader said.
But the listlessness in the Congress is not confined to Goa. Take the case of West Bengal. The party has not appointed a full-time in-charge for the state since Jitin Prasada left and joined the BJP a year ago. “There is too much casualness,” one leader said. In Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, it is yet to appoint a new PCC chief.
The Chintan Shivir in Udaipur in mid-May was supposed to inject a fresh dose of enthusiasm in the party, and to revitalise it. But, there has been no let-up in the party hurtling from one crisis to another.
First, even as the shivir was underway, senior Punjab leader Sunil Jakhar quit. The next big blow was the exit of Hardik Patel in the Assembly election-bound Gujarat. The next high-profile exit was that of Kapil Sibal, followed by Brajesh Kalappa in Karnataka. Then, Congress candidate Ajay Maken lost the Rajya Sabha election in Haryana due to cross voting.
In Maharashtra too, the Congress has been jittery. Seven of its MLAs cross-voted in the MLC elections and, following the Sena split, 11 were “absent” in the trust vote that was held. The party is yet to take action against them, even as calls are growing for the same.
In Haryana, while the party removed Kuldeep Bishnoi for cross-voting in the Rajya Sabha polls, it has yet to take action against a second MLA for the same. Bishnoi is all set to join the BJP.
Congress leaders fear that trouble could come next from Jharkhand, where the party shares power with the JMM. Among rumours that the BJP is up to something in the state, the JMM has been flexing its muscles.
While one leader said they had talked to the MLAs and that, “as of now, there is no reason to worry”, others do not share the optimism. According to them, two scenarios can follow. “The JMM could walk out of the alliance and join hands with the BJP. They have already snubbed us twice. They unilaterally announced their candidate for the Rajya Sabha elections,” one leader said, adding that the JMM may also end up supporting the NDA candidate in the presidential elections.
A second section of leaders suspect that several MLAs (at least eight, according to one leader) are in touch with the BJP. If the number goes up to 12, then the breakaway faction would reach the two-third mark to escape provisions of the anti-defection law.
While things may appear to be out of Congress hands in the matter, party leaders say it is this wait and watch, before a crisis blows up in the face, that is killing the party.
